Vinoth Ramachandra has some strong, straight words in terms of the “priority” of proclamation. I see people wobbling on either side, but for Jesus proclamation and “deed” were completely seamless and integrated. His miracles were proclamation. His actions were proclamations. His proclamation was deed. Terrific post.
note: this is my first try at “repost this blog” in the WordPress system. Let’s see how it works.
This is by a couple of psychologists that Calvin Seminary and the CRC Pastor-Church Relations office in Grand Rapids use to consult with pastors. The authors based their conclusions upon intensive work with scores of churches and pastors who have experienced major conflict. I find their observations dead on.
How Pastors Struggle
by Dane Ver Merris Ed.D. and Bert van Hoek Ed.D.
Clergy Evaluation & Consultation Service
Over the past several years we have evaluated many dozens of pastors. Most came to us because of struggles in their ministry. A few sought help with future direction or simply for better self-understanding.
That pastors would seek help at all is remarkable. Ministry is a lonely profession. Pastors are expected to live exemplary lives and serve as role models for their congregations. Consequently, pastors can be reluctant to admit shortcomings or vulnerabilities, and they are sometimes surprised by congregational dissatisfaction and criticism, or by their own failures. Unfortunately, the pressure to strive for perfection leaves ministers even more vulnerable to personal struggles. They can be reluctant to ask for help even though they face ordinary issues, temptations, and troubles.
We have observed several tendencies in the clergy who have consulted us, and we think it might be helpful to share our results with church leaders and others whose task is to assist pastors in working through their challenges. The tendency that characterizes most of the pastors we have seen is defensiveness. Ministers are understandably reluctant to admit shortcomings on the psychological tests we use. Instead, pastors view themselves as highly principled, moral, and virtuous. Test instruments are quite good at detecting this defensiveness, and the pastors we have counseled often have been reluctant to admit even minor flaws or emotional discomfort – even to the point of threatening the validity of the test results. Rather than be surprised (or unduly troubled) by pastors’ strong tendency to be defensive, those who are in a position to help must simply acknowledge the strong pressure pastors feel to make a polished presentation of themselves in spite of their obvious and genuine struggles.
Beyond this overall pattern of defensiveness, pastors who have struggles in their ministries tend to fall into one of three categories. The first is a group that is too self-assured, the second a group that suffers from social discomfort or aloofness, and the third a group that wrestles with lack of organization.
The first group of pastors who struggle is the “too self-assured.” Whether because of the stamp of “God’s calling” or because of a tendency toward arrogance or even as a reaction to earlier failure, this group tends to emphasize their “specialness” in the ministry. These pastors view themselves as visionary leaders and expect others to fall in place behind them. They can have rather significant needs for admiration and approval, but can be perceived as arrogant, dramatic, or impetuous by those around them (who might be reluctant to point this out). They have an overvalued view of self, a need to be superior or perfect, and sometimes a “slippery” ethical system that arises from the need to hide flaws and keep defects secret. These pastors also tend to focus on pleasing the congregational authorities and may be dismissive of congregants who need their care but have little to offer by way of conferring power or prestige.
These clergy have difficulty reflecting on their own contribution to their troubles. They tend to blame others, especially other congregational leaders or a few meddlesome parishioners whom they view as the cause of their distress. They often feel miffed, slighted, or unfairly criticized but have no ready mechanism for dealing with these feelings. They bristle even at constructive criticism. Thus, a subtle but growing resentment of lay authority and congregational leadership takes root. Because many pastors do not have outlets for easy resolution of anger or resentment, these pastors can suffer with quiet bitterness and dissatisfaction and begin to retreat from their congregations. This is a very difficult pattern to alter and often requires professional intervention.
A second group of ministers who have difficulty is the “socially uncomfortable” or “aloof.” Many people are drawn toward ministry because of an interest in theology, without considering the interpersonal demands of the pastorate. Seminaries have historically communicated a similar bias with a theological education that emphasizes academics over interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. Consequently, many young pastors who were excellent seminary students struggle when they are faced with the intense relational demands of ministry.
Probably no skill is more important to a pastor than the interpersonal grace and comfort that comes with emotional intelligence, and those who appear to be eccentric, aloof, or uncomfortably shy will have difficulty. Conflicts about other issues are often evidence of congregational dissatisfaction with their pastor’s lack of empathy, or are reactions to interpersonal slights committed by the pastor who lacks awareness of how others perceive him or her.
A third group of ministers who struggle is the “disorganized.” We sometimes informally think of this pattern as a form of “attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.” These pastors are scattered, late, unreliable, and possibly impulsive. They miss deadlines and fail to accomplish tasks like making visits or meeting council expectations.
The administrative demands of the pastorate are sufficiently challenging so that pastors who are not very well organized tend to alienate congregation members. Church leaders expect pastors to be reasonably responsible, organized, and responsive. Ministers who routinely disappoint them will face a rising tide of resentment.
The struggle for church leaders, of course, comes with trying to assist pastors with these challenges. For the overly self-assured it can be helpful, especially early in their careers, for seasoned colleagues, parishioners, and mentors to gently point out the ways in which they might be perceived as arrogant, heavy-handed, or insensitive. Pastors in this camp sometimes need to develop humility and something more of a “pastor’s heart.” This can sometimes be fostered by consultation with mature friends and peers or by professional mental health assistance.
The socially uncomfortable or aloof pastor may find that interpersonal discomfort will diminish over time. Education, consultation, mentoring, and sheer practice can help pastors improve social skills, learn to listen attentively, and reach out to others with improved levels of comfort and effectiveness. Professional counseling helps some pastors with these issues, too.
The disorganized or impulsive pastor may also benefit from professional help. This pattern sometimes reflects underlying disturbances that can respond to medication or personal counseling. It’s a very difficult pattern to change, but a combination of clear expectations, better planning and scheduling, and focusing on organizing techniques can be helpful. Churches can help by providing adequate administrative support.
The pastors we talk with routinely tell us how naïve they were about the demands of ministry. Successful pastors accept criticism with grace, have a realistic notion of their own worth, value positive interpersonal relationships, and reliably meet their responsibilities. We hope that these thoughts will make it a little easier for some pastors to grow in these areas and for congregational leaders to help their pastors.
Testing is a recurring theme in Scripture. Israel is tested. Moses is tested. In the Lord’s Prayer we are instructed (in some translations) to “keep us from the time of testing” yet tests come again and again.
Our experience in schools lead us to imagine that testing is about teachers discovering what students are capable of. They are “assessments” where the students are assessed.
What if, instead, tests are given to us so that who we are, our deeper selves, our deepers stories are revealed to ourselves and the world? What if we are not fully the authors of our own stories but rather testings are those moments in which we begin to discover the role we will play in the story that is being told around us and through us.
This runs against the popular notion that we are masters of our own destinies. There is always some truth to that. Our agency is real and consequential, but our decisions are always just one small part of a much larger system that is moving, unfolding, developing, pursuing the future. We are real, but we are small, smaller than the broader, larger story of history.
Saul began as a rather dim but compliant hunk of a man chosen by God, anointed by Samuel to be the requested king who would save Israel from her in-house slavery. Saul’s introductory stories were early indicators that trouble was ahead, but all of the official sanctions were in place. The elders pleaded, God relented, Samuel warned, the best candidate was found, some leaders doubted, a brutal enemy was put down and the country united around the giant of Gibeah.
After Saul’s support was secured he would be tested. He would be called to conduct a holy war against the Amelekites. This tradition of a holy war also called “the ban” was not unique to Israel. Daily life in that day involved making a living by raiding and stealing from weaker neighbors. It was a brutal but effective economic system. The simplest way to multiply the amount of food you could acquire was to not only grow your own but to also raid your neighbors at harvest time. In this way your tribe increased, your kids were well fed and multiplied, your animals were well fed and multiplied, and your neighbors withered. “The ban” was intended to be an act of impartial justice. The soldiers would receive no plunder/compensation for risking their life in battle. Their family would not benefit from the weakness of their enemy. They were not allowed to profit from this transaction, it was to be purely devoted to God. The spoils normally taken would be a holocaust, a whole, burnt offering. The taking of Jericho was one of the most famous operations of this kind.
The LORD now through Samuel announced that Saul was to start earning his keep by conducting “the ban” against the Amalekites who had raided Israel when she was weak and vulnerable. The instructions were clear, the soldiers were not to benefit from this operation, the Amalekites were to fall under God’s pure judgment and the soldiers were to be motivated solely by devotion to God.
As the story goes Saul fails this test. The best of the animals just looked to good, and a whole burnt offering seemed like a waste of good animals. The people were destroyed but the king was left perhaps as a battering tool from which to try to extract a ransome or discover a secret cache of treasure. In any case Saul fails his test and this failure will begin a slide into the kind of dark tyranny the elders in 1 Samuel 8 were asking for. Israel would experience the tyranny of all of the other nations.
Testing in the Bible is common and always consequential. There is so much in this story that offends us so far. Why would God conduct “the ban”? Does God test us to destroy us? For those who know the words “Calvinist” or “Arminian” these testings become food for that debate. Could Saul have succeeded? Why are Samuel and Yhwh so categorical in predicting Saul’s future based on this one incident? Certainly that doesn’t seem fair! Isn’t God the God of second chances?
The book of Samuel brings all of these questions to the surface and allows no glib answers for any of them. Saul is chosen by God. Saul not only fails his test and is condemned for it, but Saul also seems to be a victim of the job itself. The character development of Saul in the story is central to both the book’s judgment of kingship as well as Saul’s weaknesses. Saul goes from being a dutiful, compliant but dim son of an important tribal elder to becoming a tyrant who rules Israel by terror and violence, just like all the other nations. While Saul is not sufficiently committed to conduct “the ban” authorized by Yhwh he conducts an unauthorized one against his own servants, the priests of Nob who served his constant need for divination. Saul is not committed to Yhwh out of personal loyalty to his God, he is fundamentally committed to his own self-interest and simply uses God as a tool in pursuit of his own desired outcomes. Saul becomes a king just like all the other nations have and just as the cult of Yhwh under Eli has become the kind of religion that all of the other nations have.
Into the story comes David, 8th son of Jesse, too young and inconsequential to be brought up by his father for the subversive Samuel “anointed-king-to-be” beauty pageant. David’s introductory stories are all promise. He’s the king-whisperer, dispelling the evil spirits sent by God to hasten Saul’s downfall. He’s Goliath-bait that slays the giant and Israel’s enemies. He’s a prince by virtue of one hundred Philistine foreskins. He’s Israel’s favored son whom everyone in Israel falls for including Saul’s own flesh and blood. David’s presence in Saul’s court makes the evil spirits plaguing Saul superfluous. Saul’s rage becomes paranoia and his threats become murder. Saul insanity will drive him to attempt to kill his own son to maintain his throne. He has become like the kings of all the other nations.
Despite the grace so clearly given to David he is forced to flee into the wilderness where he attracts the rabble, poor, discontents and outlaws of Israel and other nations. He keeps his miserable little village alive in the wilderness without the benefit of manna. Everyone in Israel knows he will be king unless Saul gets him first. According to conventional wisdom the path to the crown is obvious. Gain sufficient power to directly confront Saul and take his kingdom for himself. Then David too can be king like all the other nations have. Unfortunately Saul’s reign of terror preserves his power and David’s little band is not strong enough for a frontal assault and the rest of Israel has already done the mental calculation that switching horses midstream is probably not a good idea. They hate Saul, but they don’t hate him enough to risk their lives for this son of Jesse. Don’t believe me? Ask the good people of Keilah. They were grateful enough when David saved their crops from the Philistines raiders, but not grateful enough to side with David against Saul.
1 Samuel 24 finds Saul hunting David in desperate need of a latrine. We first met Saul on a frustrating search for donkeys that were quicker to find themselves than to be found by the bruising son of Kish. Now Saul in search of David can’t locate him but by seeming happenstance has his robe up and his guard down in clear shot of David and his faithful rebels.
David’s men suddenly become convenient Saul-like diviners. Surely this is the LORD’s doing handing David’s enemy over to him. Could it be more plain? David sneaks up to the squating Saul with sword in hand. Saul has numerous time had spear in hand in his own house ready to kill David who only held a musical instrument. Now Saul is helpless and David has, perhaps, the sword of Goliath.
Right here, in this moment is David’s test. Will he become Saul, the giant of Gibeah? Will he become Goliath, the giant of Gath? To the Arminians I ask, could David have failed? To the Calvinists I ask, was this a real test? This will be the first of numerous tests of David. Some he will pass, and some he will fail.
In a book with a lot of smiting, David’s heart smites him. He cuts off a piece of Saul’s robe and is guilt striken even from this. David’s men have seen enough. It isn’t just David’s life on the line here. For Saul to acheive his goal of killing David he’s got to go through them. When Saul gave excuses for his failure to faithfully conduct the ban against the Amalekites he blamed pressure from his men. They didn’t want to see good livestock go “to waste” as a whole burnt offering to their God. Now David is similarly tested. Can he not only not raise his hand againt the LORD’s undeserving annointed but can he protect the man who seeks his life from David’s own loyal men? David passes.
What follows is one of the most remarkable speeches of David’s rather wordy career. The Psalmist shows that he can not only write words for prayer and worship but he can frame his context in a way that will drive the madness from even Saul. David will respectfully, deferentially, make his case before this madman/king while also opening the king’s eyes to the unique revelation of what kingship means in God’s special world-saving kingdom.
David appears outside the cave portion of the robe in hand. This is of course the kind of bold or foolish move that we stand in awe of David for. This boldness sent him to fight a giant. Now he stands before Gibeah’s giant madman who is backed by a 3,000 member army and all David’s got behind him is a cave with a group of supporters who are both mystified and peeved. Now in this moment Saul and David are father and son who is regularly prodigal with his own wellbeing. We revisit a long line of difficult adopted father/son relationships in the book: Eli and Samuel, Samuel and Saul, and now Saul and David. They are bound together in God’s family full of rebels, madmen, liars and saints.
David in his speech is a humble and faithful servant/son of Saul. He is innocent and his innocence exposes Saul’s guilt without David having to accuse. David is nothing, not even a dead dog but rather a single flea. All that is, however, in David’s world as we saw when he faced the giant of Gath is the one judge before whom both master and servant are called to account. Saul has regularly regarded Yhwh as an unfaithful and difficult servant which has been Saul’s undoing. Yhwh is no one’s servant, yet he is generous and patient to both the just and the unjust. Saul has never been able to see Yhwh in the world around him, which is why David encountered Israel’s giant trembling in his royal tent while Philistia’s giant poured out insults on the field of battle. All of David’s chips, all of David’s hope, all of David’s life is held by Yhwh and David finds comfort in that thought. He understands that the birds of the air and the flowers of the field die every day, but he will take his chances on the generosity of Yhwh and trust in it more than he will the skill of his hand and the power of Goliath’s sword.
David’s faith is so stark, so brilliant, so uncommon, we are dazzled, confused, attracted and mystified by it all at once. Saul’s madness and military power is no match for it. Saul repents and for the moment relents and acknowledges what he has always known but hasn’t been able to admit even to himself. Yhwh is king and Saul is his rebellious servant. David will be king for exactly the qualities Saul lacks. Saul has no one to blame but himself, and David has no one to thank but Yhwh.
Right here, outside the cave holding Saul’s steaming pile of poop and David’s confused lieutenants, David has overcome evil with good.
In this case Yhwh’s test of David brought David to a moment and into a place he could likely have never been without it. This leads me to consider that Yhwh’s testings are very different things than mere processes of information discovery. Yhwh isn’t looking necessarily to learn himself from testing us, but for us to learn from him.
From Kenneth Bailey’s “Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes”
In the concluding decades of the last century the late Hussein bin Talal was King of Jordan. Many unforgettable stories circulate orally around the Middle East about the king. I first heard the following account in Lebanon, and two decades later I was able to confirm it from a high-ranking American intelligence officer who was serving in Jordan at the time the incident took place. The story is as
follows:
One night in the early 1980s, the king was informed by his security police that a group of about seventy-five Jordanian army officers were at that very moment meeting in a nearby barracks plotting a military overthrow of the kingdom. The security officers requested permission to surround the barracks and arrest the plotters. After a somber pause the king refused and said, “Bring me a small helicopter.” A helicopter was brought. The king climbed in with the pilot and himself flew to the barracks and landed on its flat roof. The king told the pilot, “If you hear gun shots, fly away at once without me.”
Unarmed, the king then walked down two flights of stairs and suddenly appeared in the room where the plotters were meeting and quietly said to them:
Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that you are meeting here tonight to finalize your plans to overthrow the government, take over the country and install a military dictator. If you do this, the army will break apart and the country will be plunged into civil war. Tens of thousands of innocent people will die. There is no need for this. Here I am! Kill me and proceed. That way, only one man will die.
After a moment of stunned silence, the rebels as one, rushed forward to kiss the king’s hand and feet and pledge loyalty to him for life.
King Hussein opted for total vulnerability. He acted nobly and by so doing he fanned into flame the dying embers of the rebels’ sense of honor.
My text for Sunday this week is Luke 20:9-19. This is a dramatic and important text that was not unfamiliar to me. Jesus revisits the great Isaiah 5 parable and applies it to himself and his authority to preach in the temple. As Jesus’ parables go this one is clearer than many. It is a parable against the chief priests, scribes and elders that challenged him in the previous passage. This is his answer following the non-answer to their challenge.
I again found Kenneth Bailey’s “Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes” to be wonderful on the passage. Many times when I’ve read the passage I implicitly focused on judgment, which is clearly there but Bailey notes the makrothymia (long suffering) of the master in the story. Many of us know that if you have a rental property you’d better take action at the first instance of non-payment. This master isn’t negligent, but rather patient to a fault. The first slave is thrashed and sent back empty. The second is thrashed AND dishonored. The third is wounded and cast out. There is clearly heightening going on here. There is also the cultural reality here of dishonoring the slave is to dishonor the one who sent him. Finally the master sends his beloved son hoping against all hope that his presence will shame them into yielding. This master not only extends generosity unwarranted by any objective measure to these vinedressers but does so to the point of irresponsibility. Anyone hearing this story will assert that sending his son is folly. The vinedressers have made their intentions abundantly clear.
The nightmare scenario for the master now happens. They take the beloved son outside of the vineyard (so as not to make it and its produce unclean) and kill him hoping to become owners of the vineyard.
There is a real posturing in this parable that should inform us about God and judgment. I’ve read a bunch this week about the old Calvinist/Arminian debate and the revival of that debate today. See http://evangelicalarminians.org/olson.What-The-Calvinism-I-Oppose-Is-and-Why and http://rachelheldevans.com/letter-to-young-calvinist-from-young-arminian and http://www.outofur.com/archives/2010/11/is_new_calvinis.html.
What I think really bothers people today is the puzzle of perdition. The message of “God is love” has gotten out there but we have issues culturally regarding love and judgment. We tend to define things by their opposites. We imagine freedom is the absence of constraint and love is the absence of refusal. We imagine love means never saying “no”.
The parable of the rebellious vinedressers is interesting because it is based on a notion of ownership. Is there such a thing as squatter’s rights when it comes to God and the universe? What if the master just said “well, they don’t seem to want to give up the grapes, why not just let them have it.”
That is in a sense exactly how our culture approaches the issue of God and forgiveness. “Why can’t God just simply forgive people everything and let bygones by bygones?” This is a kind of “aw shucks, don’t worry about it” theodicy.
For contemporary people this makes sense and seems validated by general revelation. People do horrible things and we don’t see thunderbolts coming out of the sky after them. Job was right, his friends were wrong.
As I’ve noted before, however, we’re very inconsistent with how we feel about this “aw shucks” theodicy. We want it in place if we are being judged by another, but when we find our sense of honor or our sense of priority violated or some damage done to someone we love, we want justice and we want it fast. We want the restaurant to shut that smoker down in the next booth. We want the movie theater to get the talker behind us to shut up. We want code enforcement to make our neighbor get those rusting cars out of the front yard before they bring down the property values.
I think we also understand that squatter’s rights on a cosmic scale isn’t good for the universe. Squatter’s rights as seen in this story really is simply an extension of “might makes right”. The power the rebellious vinedressers exert is just plain old violence. The hope of sending in the son, vulnerable and without the backing of an army was the last appeal to a shred of morality left in the vinedressers. How they would respond to the son himself would establish the definitive evidence of what kind of universe these vinedressers were capable of inhabiting.
In my other prep for this Sunday I have 1 Samuel 24 which is a comparable defining moment for young David. David’s men see Saul’s squatting in cave as a revelation of God’s desire that David should take the kingdom by force. A key word in that section in the KJV is to “smite”. There has been a lot of smiting and talk of smiting going on in Samuel so far and David’s men want David to walk up to the Saul who has got his robes up and his guard down and smite him. What gets smitten in that moment, however, is David’s heart (read the KJV) and he cuts off a piece of Saul’s robe instead.
The vinedressers don’t share David’s heart. Saul is a rebellious vinedresser. David when he leaves the cave and reveals himself to Saul is a beloved son.
What does this teach us about judgment? God is patient and long suffering and gives costly and irresponsible second chances to people that don’t deserve it. Hell is finally for those for whom there is simply no other option. God is patient, but will not, cannot wait forever nor can he really cede the universe to squatters who want to rule it by the sword. Hell is in a sense giving them their own universe where they can live forever under their own relational polarity of “your wellbeing at my expense.” If you like “dog eat dog”, hell is just the place for you. Problem is that there is always a bigger dog.
Is this story Calvinistic or Arminian? Calvinism or Arminianism isn’t really about choice I don’t think. Both positions assert that people damn themselves (read the Canons of Dort). Arminians assert that Calvinists are inconsistent when they make that claim because they assert that the logical outcome of the Calvinist position makes God the author of perdition rather than human rebellion being its author.
What Calvinism wishes to say is that “I don’t know why my own heart would smite me instead of me smiting Saul. I can’t take credit for that.”
Calvinists then return the favor on the Arminians and say “The logical conclusion of the rejection of unconditional election is that you are taking credit for your own goodness and THAT is salvation by works. You take credit for the good sense to chose rightly thus saying that you are better than everyone else who choses wrongly” and Arminians say “no we’re not!”
You know a fight is going no where when one side says “What you say really means THIS” and the other side says “no it doesn’t!” We can chase each other around this tree all day long.
Perdition like we see in the vinedressers makes no logical sense if you follow it all the way through. Rebellion against God is a form of insanity. God in this story is patient, but he cannot be patient forever because ultimately to leave the universe in the hands of these squatters is to condemn the entire universe to hell. At stake is the inheritance and God will not finally cede the universe to misery rather than to joy. It is against his joyful nature.
I said “initial” because truth is I’ve got plenty more and just usually lack the time to write them. I think a lot fast than I write. 🙂
There are mountain climbers, surveyors and engineers. The village can’t follow mountain climbers. If you want to move a village you’ve got to build a highway and the truth is that the story of Christianity is a lot of highway building. Our confessions where highways built not just by theologians, but by pastors, and elders and leaders and communities. The scope of the difference between some mountain climbers doing some initial surveying and moving a village is like the scope we’re looking at with some of these things. If you want to move a village you have lots of questions. “Why do we need to move. I like it here. My parents were born here. This is my home.” and not everyone will take that journey and probably most people don’t have to but some will.
If anyone is feeling scared they should be happy to know that they are sane. There is plenty to be scared about, but that is also life. What is true is that all of what we need we have and that what we need to do is to keep working on all of the things found in scripture that are beyond dispute but that we find very difficult in issues far beyond and far more important than Genesis and science or whatever scary thing is troubling you. We need to learn to trust God. We need to believe in his word. We need to learn to listen to each other. We need to learn to extend trust to others even with things that are precious to us and to give people some space to make mistakes or try new things. We need to reign in our temptations to control others. We need to figure out how institutions work, how they need to work for the wellbeing of the broader community. All of these things we need to do and if we can do some of this then we will actually, probably be able to make some progress.
Some observations and suggestions:
1. This is a conflict so it is helpful to recognize some dynamics of conflict. Our goal should be to have helpful conversations where both sides can feel heard. One thing to recognize is how anger impacts our capacity to listen well to each other and to resist a lot of sinful habits we all have learned. The Bible says “in your anger do not sin.” I’ve read some popular notions of brain function that asserts that once we have activated our fight/flight regions of the brain other portions of the brain aren’t able to function as well. In my experience this debate in Christian circles regularly activates the fight/flight regions of our brain. When we are angry it is probably important to be careful around keyboards and microphones lest we say things that are not fair, generous, kind, accurate or honest.
Also this kind of debate tends not to be one where the combatants will likely do a lot of changing positions. It is assumed that those listening in are the audience that both sides wish to influence. For that reason it is important to recognize that it is probably true that the most persuasive arguments are those that resist characterizing others, leaning hard on assuming the motives of others, and indulging in sarcasm or insults.
2. Recognize that different groups have different roles to play in this matter in the broader Christian community. A college is not a church. Professors are not pastors. The task of doing theology is not identical with gospel proclamation. Part of what makes this discussion complicated is that there are differing ideas about what it means to be a “Christian” college. How does the requirement to sign the form of subscription impact how a professor goes about his or her work? Because we have different institutions I think it is important to understand how these institutions should function within the economy of the broader body of Christ. We must also consider how that body must function within its context in the broader world. All of these levels are important to keep in mind as we work through an issue like this.
2a. What is a “Christian” college and how should it understand its in relationship with the church, the broader body of Christ and its relationships outside the church?
The steward of the mission of Calvin College is its board of trustees. That is the body that is tasked by the CRCNA to govern the school and steward its mission. I hope and pray that the group is a healthy board that understands its mandate and is diligent towards its task. I have no reason to believe that any of this is not so at this point but I also have no experience with that body at all. Having had experience with governing boards I do know that they can be complex and ever changing.
In my opinion the mission of Calvin College is to create a space where young people are taught to faithfully engage the “the two books” described in Article 2 of the Belgic Confession, the creation (general revelation) and the Bible (special revelation). I wrote about this in a previous blog post: https://paulvanderklay.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/the-need-for-calvin-college/. Part of that is modeling which means that a central task of the faculty is that they themselves are always engaged in this process.
A major part of how this works is for academics to explore ideas and offer ideas for broader discussion and evaluation. This is how I understand the articles published by Profs. Schneider and Harlow.
Now some are saying “there are ideas in these papers that aren’t in line with the doctrinal standards of the CRC” and that may very well be true. That alone, however, does not mean that either of them have violated the Form of Subscription. The Form of Subscription recognizes a difference in being involved in discussion and doing theological exploration verses promotion of ideas as settle theology or representing them as the teachings of the church. There is a difference between what someone might put in a theological journal for peer review and discussion, or what is presented to students for debate and discussion verses what one preaches from the pulpit. These men have presented their ideas as their ideas and they are putting them forward for debate. The best way to respond to the ideas is to respond to the ideas.
I think all of this is exactly what should he happening at Calvin College. The college doesn’t need professors simply espousing settled theology. Books can do that. We need professors to think, engage students, wrestle with ideas. This isn’t far from the admonitions of Miss Frizzle: “take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” This is the work of human learning.
Why should it happen at a Christian college? A Christian college hopefully offers a safe space where multiple voices can be heard and hopefully understood. It provides a common background and language that hopefully can help bring clarity to issues and make discussions helpful.
Part of what a Christian college should offer is a context of hope. We understand that nobody gets everything right and that ideas have to be tested, evaluated and worked through. To do this well we want an open place where people can be honest about what they believe, about what they are thinking, and can hopefully share them where there will be listening, fair minded challenges, and earnest struggle. I hope that is what all of the faculty of Calvin College is engaging in.
2b. How does it help the CRCNA to have Calvin College processing these kinds of issues. These issues are important ones in terms of missiology in the developed world. We learn often by dissonance and when things don’t square up we are forced to re-evaluate assumed ideas and seek better answers to long standing questions. Sometimes these questions come from Scripture, sometimes they come from general revelation. The CRCNA is blessed to have a relationship with a community of people wrestling with these things. These are things that churches are not equipped to deal with. There may be a scientist or two, and probably only one person trained in theology or Biblical studies and those two people may likely be engaged in a variety of other important task beyond working on some of these difficult puzzles. A community like Calvin College allows the CRCNA to be attached to broader conversations that individuals in our churches may only get snippets of.
It is also important to recognize that Calvin College is NOT a church and the church is NOT Calvin College. Calvin needs to do its thing in conversation with the church and visa versa but that conversation can only happen if both parties understand their roles and converse from within them. The point of connection between the two is the Calvin Board of Trustees.
3. Helping both sides to understand each other.
Because I’m a pastor with an interest in Biblical studies and theology and because I read blogs by various scholars I know that the topics being discussed by the Calvin profs in question is being done within a broader discussion very much within the evangelical community. By virtue of knowing people who know these people, and knowing the institution in question, I don’t have any concerns that in fact these are fine, Christian men who have both the courage and integrity to do their jobs which I think they are in fact doing. That doesn’t mean that all of their ideas are “right”. They will probably be the first to say that they may be wrong about much. That is part of the academic project. What it does mean is that these people are highly trained, highly learned, and highly specialized in working through very difficult ideas and exploring possibilities. These are idea-athletes. They work with ideas all the time and they are good at it.
I am a pastor of a church with very regular people doing very regular things most of which doesn’t touch the kinds of things these specialized people are focusing on. What touches them from their work are usually some basic, attention grabbing headlines that touch on some pretty important things.
What I see are idea-athletes who are nimble, agile and in a sense mountain climbers when it comes to working with ideas. They come back and say “that mountain can be climbed!”. That’s fine. I’d love to hear about what they explore. Part of what I say in response to them is “it’s fine to tell me how you are able to climb the mountain. You are an athlete and a very adept climber. You practice climbing all day long. You have learned the tricks, the rules, the ropes, etc. It is one thing to say that you, and other skilled climbers can get through those mountains. It is an entirely different project to ask me to get my village through those mountains. We have young and old and a good many people with no small amount of baggage.”
With this little word picture I hope both sides will understand something about each other. We need idea-athletes in a place like Calvin College to be up there playing on the rocks in places where many of us should probably not dare to play on. Yes there are slippery slopes and slippery slopes can cost you your life. People in the village shouldn’t say “you people better stay out of those mountains. You might get hurt!” Let the idea-athlete-climbers do their exploration. What they discover in the mountains will likely become useful down in the village.
At the same time the idea-athlete-climbers should understand (and probably do) that being a villager is a very different thing from what they do. Villagers may enjoy the mountains and look to them regularly and get their water from the mountains but their knowledge of the mountains is limited and they spend most of their lives doing things that climbers too depend upon. Raising kids, working farms, tending shops, etc. Both groups have their roles and should understand something about how they both need each other to do their jobs for the sake of the others.
enough for now. More later I’m sure. pvk
Got a call from a woman on the church phone this morning looking for help for her sister. This isn’t an unusual situation. The deacons and I field “benevolence requests” pretty regularly. What was noteworthy about this request was that this was the second time in 8 days that a person told me that they got our name from “a list”. Often people looking for assistance will simply go through the phonebook and call all of the churches they find, hoping to find a live person answering the phone. How do I know? I ask them.
When the person called she asked for a couple of deacons by name which surprised me, and one of the forms of the name of one of the deacons was unusual, not the one we call her by here. She first asked if these two people where here. She assumed that these were the names of people who worked in an office here, imagining this to be a large place with lots of people working and lots of funding. I explained to her that I was the only person here and that these people were volunteers who were helping people out because they wanted to. I explained that we are a small church with limited funds but we try to do what we can with what we’ve got.
I decided to pursue “the list” a little further with this woman. She said she works in a bank and got out name from a co-worker at the bank because “these people help people out”. I got the information from her and shared it with the deacons who will figure out what to do with her request. What was noteworthy for me was that you, this little church, has a reputation and enough of a reputation out there to make someone’s informal “craigslist” for people who help.
I doubt that our little church will ever be famous by making the cover of Christianity Today, but we are now famous for something else on a different kind of list. If we’re going to have a name for something, I’m glad we have a name for this. pvk
In the triumphal entry Jesus finally lets the disciples fully indulge in their insufficient messianic fantasies. All throughout his ministry the disciples have been attempting to found Jesus’ kingdom upon the age of decay. This motley, politically and religiously diverse band of underlings have all shared dreams of an angelic powered, maccabbean revolt against the hated and brutal Roman occupation. Finally, at last, Yhwh will save his people from their house-arrest type exile and their going to a Yahwist temple disney-land and they they just can’t wait.
Part of why Jesus lets them run with it is because one one level it is all true and in this one instance he’ll allow them additional indulgence of their deceiptful ideals because within that week they will be crushed beyond their nightmares and bewildered in a hopefully confused way beyond anything they are prepared for.
In all fairness Jesus has been only clear with them, but that kind of clarity is like a bright light waking a heavy sleeper. Ever since the beginning he was announcing in word and miraculous power the end of the age of decay and that its end is found in him alone. That, however, was and is simply a message that we struggle to comprehend in any way possible.
Now Jesus initiates the untying of the donkey, comes down the Mt. of Olives infused with Zechariah imagery of Yhwh coming and rescuing his people from the tyranny of the nations. Pharisees will protest, but at this point the author of creation 1.0 simply must receive is praise from it. A blind beggar cried out to the Son of David in Jericho wishing to see, if disciples didn’t praise the stones themselves would cry out.
Peace on earth was announced at his birth. Peace in heaven is now announced at the advent to the geographic center of Davidic promise.
Jesus’ disciples, like all of us, are junkies on the age of decay. The manifest spendor even of this frustrated creation is still capable of fascinating us and eliciting worship from us, which is exactly the point of Commandments 1 and 2 and Romans 1. We have organized the entire world around attempting to build our house upon sand and using some form of religion or another to try to leverage God’s cooperation in our futile effort.
Why are all of these efforts futile? Rule #1 of the age of decay: nothing built within it lasts. This is why Jesus tells Pilate “my kingdom is not FROM this world!” Any kingdom from this age will crumble.
Jesus now lets them have a really big fix. This is the hit of crack religion they have all been dreaming of, and Jesus lets them do it because the crash they are about to receive will need to be sufficient to make them needy enough to not flee the resurrected Lord like some group of temple guard hirelings. They will need to not run FROM the tomb but TOWARDS the tomb to wonder about the angel’s message and the empty burial linen.
We today stand in their shoes but with far less excuse. We too are idolatrously trying to hobble together some religious plan to create for ourselves a kingdom in the age of decay. We like some dim toddler fall for the same stupid trick every time. Remember Rule #1 of the age of decay? Nothing lasts that is built upon it. Jesus comes to us and says “hey, silly kingdom builders, follow me. Nothing that has not died can be raised.”
Jesus is the trail blazer that establishes the trail and leads the refugees from the age of decay, through the cross, out of the empty tomb into the promised land where all that was built within (not upon) the age of decay in his name has somehow endured and been perfected in the age to come.
One of the most dangerous things God can give us in the age of decay is success. Success tempts us into the delusion of the world that something enduring can be built UPON the age of decay but that breaks rule #1.
Some good news is that even bad news in the age of decay if that Lamb is in sight can be turned to our good because it re-orients us to the reality and the makes us a bit aware of the delusion we have once again fallen prey to.
All we need to point our nose in the right direction is the kind of unanswered, red faced, crying out in pain of prayer that we hate but is often the only indication that we are at all in touch with the disaster of the age of decay. These are prayers that God can use, much better than our prideful prayers that we imagine will be productive because God will be impressed by our morality, eloquence or loyalty. We forget what God repeated how many times in the Bible that he loves a broken and a contrite heart. We keep such displayes behind closed doors, but the Holy Spirit takes such prayers and turns them into a symphony of fragrant offerings the likes of which we couldn’t imagine constructing in our most eloquent or “anointed” moments.
In these cruciform moments we begin to see through the fur coats beyond the back of the wardrobe.
The older we get, the worse things get, the more available we are to these glimpses. That’s why we find saints in nursing homes and hospital beds, some of them like Mabel.
Part of me is deeply revolted and abhors this reality but another part is comforted by it. The one thing the age of decay reliably delivers is suffering but through the cross this suffering can deliver resurrection and not simply futility. From the perspective of the Assembler of Ecclesiastes those mirages are what he sees under the sun, but this side of Easter joy can begin.
What our response to Luther’s antisemitism can teach us
I wrote this responding to a blog post on a woman’s shock at discovering Luther’s antisemitism.
1. Read history. Please. This may be new to a lot of you apparently. This is hardly new information. One of the biggest blind sides in religious conversation today is a real lack of any awareness of our past and what previous generations have done, contributed, and erred. It is ironic that this be the case for a generation that has more history available to them than any other in history. If history isn’t your thing search out good biographies of historical persons you are interested in.
2. Are we really that surprised that individuals can make significant contributions to cultural development (theology, art, music, science, etc.) and have some glaring wrongs and blind spots? Shall we get canonical? Abraham married his half sister and twice tried to give her away because he was scared. Moses was a murderer. David killed a loyal soldier to cover up sleeping with the guy’s wife. Again, there isn’t anything new here.
3. I think it is a opportunity to reflect upon how and why we venerate people. There is no question that Martin Luther changed the course of human history. It is one of the most consequential people to live in the last 1000 years. Not long ago I read an article that made the point that Luther was ALSO one of the most important reformers of the RC church. Because of the Protestant Reformation a whole range of practices in the RC church were eventually reformed. Secular text book conversations regularly debate how much space they should give to a guy like Luther but he keeps making the cut because the changes were THAT consequential not just for people who go to church today but for all of world history.
I think what we are really bumping into here with Rachel’s post is that many of us who were educated in the church or Christian school received a lot of “hero” indoctrination. The writing of history is always as much about the present as it is the past. Biographies are sometimes written in order to pursue contemporary agendas as much as they are to report on the past. Our religious traditions have raised up heroes in order to solidify their own groupings and develop loyalty to their particular brand within the communities of traditions. In doing so there is always a great temptation to do some convenient editing to make a particular person more palatable for contemporary sensibilities.
When it comes to teaching children we often recognize that more issues are in play. What issues are age appropriate in a certain telling? We love telling kids about killing Goliath but few Bible story books have nice images of David collecting the 100 Philistine foreskins to pay the bride price for Michal.
Part of growing up is realizing who and what people are. A mature Christian anthropology recognizes the universality of radical inconsistency. A mature faith recognizes it in ourselves. Calvinists of course have a leg up on all of this. The monstrosity that we are is an article of public doctrine. This cuts down on the surprise factor for such disclosures. 🙂
4. Before we get too revved up in our enjoyment of vilifying Luther for his antisemitism we might want to ponder on the fact that this impulse and habit is the same that caused his antisemitism. We have labeled a great evil and now attempt to marshal the resources available to us to combat it, and off we go. First out talking and community formation around agreement about these evils sets the stage and coalitions for various actions down the road. When subsequent generations then review our work they too repeat the process. Perhaps the underpinnings of the process deserve further examination. pvk